Anthropic has rolled out a major upgrade to Claude Code, introducing plugin support — enabling developers to customize and share their AI coding environments with ease. The new system allows developers to install and manage plugins composed of slash commands, agents, MCP servers, and workflow hooks — all with a single command.

The announcement marks a significant step in making AI-powered development environments more flexible, modular, and community-driven.

A Unified System for Custom AI Workflows

Plugins in Claude Code are designed to simplify how teams build and share their custom AI setups. Developers can now use the /plugin command (currently in public beta) to install or remove plugins directly from within Claude Code, whether in the terminal or VS Code.

Each plugin can include:

• Slash Commands – Custom shortcuts for repetitive or complex operations.

• Subagents – Specialized AI agents that handle tasks like debugging, documentation, or deployment.

• MCP Servers – Model Context Protocol servers that connect Claude to external tools, APIs, and data sources.

• Hooks – Event-based extensions that modify Claude Code’s behavior at key points in a workflow.

According to Anthropic, plugins are designed to toggle on and off dynamically, reducing system prompt load and keeping context efficient.

Building and Sharing with Plugin Marketplaces

In addition to local customization, Anthropic is introducing plugin marketplaces — decentralized repositories where developers and organizations can host and distribute collections of plugins.

Developers can host a marketplace through a GitHub repository, git repo, or URL, as long as it contains a properly formatted .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file.

Users can then add new marketplaces by running:

/plugin marketplace add user-or-org/repo-name

and browse available plugins from within Claude Code.

Community-driven marketplaces are already emerging. Engineer Dan Ávila has released a marketplace focused on DevOps automation, documentation generation, and testing suites, while Seth Hobson has curated 80+ specialized subagents accessible directly through plugins.

Anthropic has also published example plugins for pull request reviews, security guidance, and Claude Agent SDK development, along with a meta-plugin for creating new plugins.

Standardizing AI Development Workflows

Claude Code plugins enable engineering leaders and open-source maintainers to enforce coding standards, share best practices, and connect to internal tools more securely. Common use cases include:

• Code review automation and test enforcement.

• DevOps workflows for build, deployment, and CI/CD tasks.

• Internal tool integration via MCP servers.

• Reusable agent configurations for specific frameworks or programming environments.

“Plugins help teams standardize and scale AI-assisted development,” said an Anthropic spokesperson. “They make it simple to share powerful workflows, enforce best practices, and connect Claude to the tools that matter most.”

Getting Started

Claude Code plugins are available now in public beta. Developers can install and manage them using the /plugin command across supported interfaces.

For documentation, examples, and marketplace publishing guides, visit Anthropic’s official Claude Code documentation.